Pelé remains a selling point for the Cosmos. Photograph: New York Cosmos
Never mind the weight of history, the giant book on Pelé propped up at the entrance of the Shuart Stadium press box looked like it could break a foot.
Pelé was very much in the building on Sunday, as the New York Cosmos kicked off their first full NASL season since their revival. Though, of course, this being the Cosmos – trying to thread the needle as a viable present day New York soccer franchise, while leveraging the glamour of their 70s heyday – Pelé is never far away.
The building in question on Sunday was Hofstra University's soccer stadium in Long Island – current home to the NASL champion Cosmos (they won the league’s Soccer Bowl last year, by winning the fall season in their first campaign back, then beating the spring champions, and Sunday’s opponents, Atlanta Silverbacks, in the final in Atlanta). Opening day 2014 was a themed Pelé day, and retro green Cosmos shirts dotted the stadium emblazoned with the great Brazilian’s name as he was paraded before kick off.
It capped a celebration of Pelé started by the presentation of an honorary degree by Hofstra University this weekend — itself the centerpiece of one of the largest soccer conferences ever held in the USA, 'Soccer as the Beautiful Game: Football’s Artistry, Identity and Politics' featuring over 100 speakers from around the world, including the likes of David Goldblatt ('The Ball is Round') and an intriguing proposition from Dr Jennifer Doyle, of the University of California, Riverside: 'Imagining a World Without a World Cup: An Abolitionist Perspective'.
It’s the type of event that Europeans are familiar with in World Cup years, as other realms of our culture make a sometimes reluctant concession that football exists, or attempt to recuperate it as somehow legitimate for artistic or academic consideration. But a conference on this scale in the USA would have been unthinkable before the Pelé NASL days, or in the so-called “lost generation” years after his and the NASL’s departure, and before the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994 (and realistically for most of the years since).
But in 2014, while the presence of probably the greatest player of the 20th century was undoubtedly a unique selling point for the conference, the life of the game in the US has reached a point where the constituency of writers, artists, academics, and students in attendance would doubtless have assembled anyway, as the game gains an increasing foothold in the country.
Yet for the Cosmos, looking to gain their own foothold in a crowded New York sports market about to get even more crowded as New York FC commence play in 2015, and with existing MLS team New York Red Bulls having topped their own regular season standings last year, the association with Pelé is still vital. This even as the shadow his reputation casts is out of all proportion to the Cosmos’ current, and modest, attempts to rebuild the team on the field in the revived NASL.
The current campaign on the field got off to the best possible start — by half-time on Sunday, the Cosmos were 3-0 up on last year’s beaten finalists, Atlanta, who will themselves soon know what it’s like to compete in a crowded local marketplace, with the expected announcement this week that Arthur Blank’s new Atlanta Falcons stadium complex in the city will also play host to the next MLS expansion team.
It’s a reminder that while the Cosmos have quickly resumed their pre-eminent position as flat-track bullies in the NASL, the presence of MLS means that in the eyes of US Soccer, they are now officially a second division team, albeit with a history like no other. But running off at full-time after a 4-0 win over a demoralized Atlanta, the present-day Cosmos are doing their best to write a revision of that history.
The current Cosmos captain, and in fact the first signing of their modern era, Carlos Mendes, opened the scoring on Sunday, with what was actually his first competitive goal as a player (he evidently enjoyed it so much he soon added another). Mendes may never be invited to have a plaque dedicated to him before a future Cosmos game, as Pelé was before kick off – he certainly won’t have a giant coffee table book decorated with pictures of his career laid out for spectators to peruse after donning white gloves. But he’s part of a project that’s trying to inch towards a sustainable future, one game at a time, while learning to live with the shadow cast by its past.
Health secretary Kathleen Sebelius looks on as her replacement, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden applaud. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Barack Obama sought to draw a line under one of the most calamitous chapters of his presidency on Friday, announcing the resignation of his embattled health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, and claiming that his flagship health reforms have finally “turned a corner”.
Signalling the White House's intention to move on from the rollout of the laws introduced under the Affordable Care Act, which was hampered by disastrous technical failures afflicting a crucial federal website, Obama announced his nomination to succeed Sebelius, who he insisted had overseen reforms that will transform America.
Obama said Sebelius would “go down in history” as the health and human services secretary in post when the country “finally declared that quality affordable healthcare is not a privilege, but a right for every single citizen”. Sebelius, health secretary since Obama came to office in 2009, helped shepherd through the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and directed its subsequent implementation.
However, while crediting Sebelius with fostering such historic changes, Obama acknowledged the damage to the reputation of his administration caused by the website's failings. The glitches took months to repair, slowing the initial pace of enrolment for affordable healthcare coverage.
Obama said Sebelius had “helped guide [the law's] implementation, even when it got rough,” and added: “She’s got bumps. I’ve got bumps, bruises.”
He spoke in the Rose Garden, flanked by Sebelius and his new nominee for the role: Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of White House Office of Management and Budget, who he described as a competent manager who would oversee the remaining rollout of the laws which have come to be known as Obamacare.
With less than seven months to go before midterm elections, Democrats are keen to capitalise on strong enrolment figures reported as the sign-up period drew to a close. Hours before news of her departure leaked on Thursday, Sebelius announced that least 7.5 million Americans had enrolled for health coverage through the new exchanges, exceeding the administration’s targets.
The Affordable Care Act, a monumental piece of legislation designed to significantly expand healthcare coverage, is widely seen as Obama’s most significant domestic achievement. But it is also his most divisive. Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed more than 50 symbolic votes to repeal the ACA, which was also challenged unsuccessfully in the supreme court.
Republican strategists have already made Obamacare the focus of two elections, and are planning to make the failed rollout a central tenet of their campaign in November.
Obamacare overhauled the health insurance market, creating online healthcare exchanges and an individual mandate requiring almost all Americans to obtain coverage or pay a penalty.
In many states it also significantly expanded Medicaid, which provides healthcare to low-income Americans. Over the next decade, it is predicted that 25 million Americans will receive healthcare coverage as a result of the changes.
On Friday, Obama acknowledged that website failures had hampered the rollout of the healthcare exchanges, the central plank of the reforms, but he insisted the main problems had been overcome.
“Yes, we lost the first quarter of the open enrolment period with the problems with healthcare.gov – and there were problems," he said.
"But under Kathleen’s leadership, her team at HHS turned the corner, got it fixed, got the job done, and the final score speaks for itself: there are 7.5 million people across the country that have the security of health insurance, most of them for the very first time.”
Obama introduces Sylvia Mathews Burwell. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
The president described Burwell, a former president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as “a proven manager" who “knows how to deliver results”.
Analysts said Burwell’s appointment was a shrewd move. As director of the OMB since April 2013, she has been directly involved in attempting to rescue the healthcare rollout but, unlike other possible nominees, has not until now been too closely associated with the law.
Her Senate confirmation for the OMB directorship passed with unanimous consent, making it difficult for Republicans to raise objections this time around. Burwell was also instrumental in facilitating the budget deal, which passed in December in a rare act of bipartisan co-operation.
John McCain was the first Republican senator to endorse Burwell, describing her as an “excellent choice”. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was less enthusiastic, saying he hoped Burwell’s nomination was “the start of a candid conversation about Obamacare’s shortcomings”.
“It’s fitting that nearly one year after the primary legislative architect of Obamacare predicted it would be a train wreck, the government official most responsible for overseeing it reportedly is resigning,” he said.
“Regardless of the administration’s public explanation for the secretary’s exit, Obamacare has been a rolling disaster and her resignation is cold comfort to the millions of Americans who were deceived about what it would mean for them and their families.”
Even if right-leaning Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz wanted to stage a dramatic hold-up of Burwell's appointment, rules recently introduced by the Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, make it much harder for senators to filibuster presidential nominations. Democrats, who control the Senate, will only need to muster 51 votes to ensure Burwell is confirmed.
Nonetheless, Burwell will not be able to escape what are likely to be intense grillings before congressional committees on Capitol Hill, where Republicans see an opportunity to remind voters of the stumbling rollout of the law.
Vulnerable Democratic senators in states such as Louisiana, Arkansas and North Carolina have already been hit by Republican attack ads focusing on healthcare. The ads often feature stories of people who lost their insurance plans – despite Obama’s famous promise that anyone who wanted to keep their plans could do so – or others who saw their premiums rise.
Some Democrats have been delicately distancing themselves from Obama, whose approval rating remains low, or going public with their own concerns over his healthcare reforms.
Sebelius’s slump began on 1 October 2013, the day the healthcare exchange website was launched – and promptly crashed. The problems initially received little attention, coinciding as it did with the the start of the government shutdown, which was orchestrated by Cruz and other rightwing Republicans in protest over Obamacare.
That move backfired, and it was not until the shutdown concluded two weeks later that the severity of the website's failings began to receive widespread attention.
Millions were unable to access the site, and at times it seemed the fiasco would undermine the entire healthcare law, which relies on sufficient numbers of young and healthy people signing up for new plans.
Hauled before Congress to explain the debacle, Sebelius, a former Democratic governor of Kansas, stumbled repeatedly. It was clear that her job was now not just to fix the website, but to absorb criticism and perhaps deflect attention from her boss.
"Hold me accountable for the debacle,” she told the House energy and commerce panel on 21 October. “I'm responsible.”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said Sebelius had overseen a 'rolling disaster'. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
The White House eventually parachuted in a host of outside experts, including former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene, to help fix the problems. Sebelius also took the executive decision to extend sign-up deadlines, and introduced other last-minute changes to keep Obamacare afloat – moves that were strongly criticised by Republicans.
But the fixes worked. After a slow start, enrolment picked up, with a dramatic rise in the number of people visiting the exchanges in the days and weeks leading up to the 31 March deadline.
By the time the enrolment period closed, on Monday last week, 7.1 million people had signed up. On Thursday, Sebelius used her final appearance before the Senate to announce a further 400,000 enrollees – a boost from the extended deadline – bringing the total to 7.5 million.
Republicans say that top-line figure is misleading, because the administration has not said how many of those who have already signed up for insurance closed the deal by paying their first month’s premiums. Neither have Sebelius or other senior officials said how many people lost their plans because they did not meet the requirements of the ACA.
However, Democrats clearly believe the winds have finally changed. Speaking at the White House on Friday, Sebelius described the health reforms as “the cause of my life”.
“I knew it wouldn’t be easy. There is a reason why no earlier president was successful in passing health reform, despite five decades of attempts,” she said.
“But throughout the legislative battles, the supreme court challenge, a contentious re-election and years of battles to turn back the clock, we are making progress. Tremendous progress.”
She added: “Critics and supporters alike are benefiting from this law.”
Iranian nominated ambassador to the United Nations Hamid Abutalebi in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: EPA
The White House has made good on a promise not to let an Iranian tied to the 1979 hostage crisis travel to the United States.
The administration on Friday denied a visa to Hamid Abutalebi, who sought entry as Iran’s recently appointed ambassador to the United Nations. The visa denial came a day after Congress passed quickie legislation to bar entry to the US to individuals tied to a national security threat.
"We concur with the Congress and share the intent of the bill," press secretary Jay Carney said. Earlier this week, he said the White House had “informed the government of Iran that this potential selection is not viable”.
An Iranian spokesman at the United Nations said the move contravened international law. "It is a regrettable decision by the US administration which is in contravention of international law, the obligation of the host country and the inherent right of sovereign member states to designate their representatives to the United Nations," spokesman Hamid Babaei said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif saidAbutalebi was an experienced diplomat and that “the US administration is well aware of the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran considers the [potential] visa denial unacceptable.”
Iranians angered by American backing for the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and by western exploitation of oil assets stormed the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979. Fifty-two US citizens and diplomats inside were held hostage for 444 days.
The role Abutalebi played in the hostage-taking is unclear. He suggested to Iranian media that he had acted as a translator for the hostage-takers.
The United States typically grants visas to diplomats and heads of state from around the world, including from Iran, Venezuela and other nations with tenuous relations with Washington, to visit UN headquarters in New York City.
A bill authored by Republican senator Ted Cruz, which presaged the visa denial, easily passed the Senate on Monday, after it received the backing of Democratic hawks such as Chuck Schumer. Cruz, a standard-bearer of the right wing of the GOP, called Iran’s nomination a “deliberate and unambiguous insult to the United States”. It sailed through the House of Representatives on Thursday.
A regular US air force unit based in the Nevada desert is responsible for flying theCIA's drone strike programme inPakistan, according to a new documentary to be released on Tuesday.
The film – which has been three years in the making – identifies the unit conducting CIA strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas as the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, which operates from a secure compound in a corner of Creech air force base, 45 miles from Las Vegas in the Mojave desert.
Several former drone operators have claimed that the unit's conventional air force personnel – rather than civilian contractors – have been flying the CIA's heavily armed Predator missions in Pakistan, a 10-year campaign which according to some estimates has killed more than 2,400 people.
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, said this posed questions of legality and oversight. "A lethal force apparatus in which the CIA and regular military collaborate as they are reportedly doing risks upending the checks and balances that restrict where and when lethal force is used, and thwart democratic accountability, which cannot take place in secrecy."
The Guardian approached the National Security Council, the CIA and the Pentagon for comment last week. The NSC and CIA declined to comment, while the Pentagon did not respond.
The role of the squadron, and the use of its regular air force personnel in the CIA's targeted killing programme, first emerged during interviews with two former special forces drone operators for a new documentary film, Drone.
Bryant said this was disingenuous because it was widely known in military circles that the US air force was already involved.
"There is a lie hidden within that truth. And the lie is that it's always been the air force that has flown those missions. The CIA might be the customer but the air force has always flown it. A CIA label is just an excuse to not have to give up any information. That is all it has ever been."
Referring to the 17th squadron, another former drone operator, Michael Haas, added: "It's pretty widely known [among personnel] that the CIA controls their mission."
Six other former drone operators who worked alongside the unit, and who have extensive knowledge of the drone programme, have since corroborated the claims. None of them were prepared to go on the record because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Bryant said public scrutiny of the programme had focused so far on the CIA rather than the military, and it was time to acknowledge the role of those who had been carrying out missions on behalf of the agency's civilian analysts.
"Everyone talks about CIA over Pakistan, CIA double-tap, CIA over Yemen, CIA over Somalia. But I don't believe that they deserve the entirety of all that credit for the drone programme," he said. "They might drive the missions; they might say that these are the objectives – accomplish it. They don't fly it."
Another former drone operator based at Creech said members of the 17th were obsessively secretive.
"They don't hang out with anyone else. Once they got into the 17th and got upgraded operationally, they pretty much stopped talking to us. They would only hang out among themselves like a high school clique, a gang or something."
Shamsi said the revelations, if true, raised "a host of additional pressing questions about the legal framework under which the targeted killing programme is carried out and the basis for the secrecy that continues to shroud it."
She added: "It will come as a surprise to most Americans if the CIA is directing the military to carry out warlike activities. The agency should be collecting and analysing foreign intelligence, not presiding over a massive killing apparatus.
"We don't know precisely what rules the CIA is operating under, but what we do know makes clear that it's not abiding by the laws that strictly limit extrajudicial killing both in and out of traditional battlefields. Now we have to ask whether the regular military is violating those laws as well, under the secrecy that the CIA wields as sword and shield over its killing activities.
"Congressional hearings in the last year have made it embarrassingly clear that Congress has not exercised much oversight over the lethal programme."
In theory, the revelation could expose serving air force personnel to legal challenges based on their direct involvement in a programme that a UN special rapporteur and numerous other judicial experts are concerned may be wholly or partly in violation of international law.
Sitting 45 miles north-west of Las Vegas in the Mojave desert, Creech air force base has played a key role in the US drone programme since the 1990s.
The 22nd and 867th Reconnaissance Squadrons each fly Reaper drones, the more heavily armed successor to the Predator.
But it is the last of the four units – the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron – that is now under the most scrutiny.
It is understood to have 300 air crew and operates about 35 Predator drones – enough to provide five or six simultaneous missions during any 24-hour period.
It operates from within an inner compound at Creech, which even visiting military VIPs are unable to access, say former base personnel. Former workers at Creech say the unit was treated as the "crown jewels" of the drone programme.
"They wouldn't even let us walk by it, they were just so protective of it," said Haas, who for two years was a drone operator. He was also an operational trainer at Creech.
"From what I was able to gather, it was pretty much confirmed they were flying missions almost exclusively in Pakistan with the intent to strike."
In the Operations Cell, which receives video feeds from every drone "line" in progress at Creech, mission co-ordinators from the 17th were kept segregated from all the others.
Established as a regular drone squadron in 2002, the unit transitioned to its new "customer" in 2004 at the same time that CIA drone strikes began in Pakistan, former personnel have said.
The operators receive their orders from civilian CIA analysts who ultimately decide whether – and against whom – to carry out a strike, according to one former mid-level drone commander.
Creech air force base would only confirm that the 17th squadron was engaged in "global operations".
"The 732nd Operations Group oversees global operations of four squadrons – the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, 22nd Reconnaissance Squadron, 30th Reconnaissance Squadron and the 867th Reconnaissance Squadron. These squadrons are all still active … their mission is to perform high-quality, persistent, multi-role intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in support of combatant commanders' needs."
Although the agency's drone strikes have killed a number of senior figures in al-Qaida and the Taliban, the CIA also stands accused by two United Nations investigators of possible war crimes for some of its activities in Pakistan. They are probing the targeting of rescuers and the bombing of a public funeral.
Mephedrone is one of several drugs UK users are preferring to buy online than through dealers. Photograph: Rex Features
More drug users are buying their drugs online – including so-called legal highs as well as illegal drugs such as cannabis and MDMA – because they say the quality is better, there is more choice and it is more convenient, research has found.
The 2014 Global Drug Survey (GDS) – which questioned almost 80,000 drug users from 43 countries, and is the largest research of its kind – indicates that although the majority of drug users still use dealers, a growing number are following 21st-century shopping habits by going online.
Hidden online drug marketplaces such as Silk Road – known as the "Amazon for drugs" before it was shut down in October last year – have sprung up and drug users are using the virtual currency Bitcoin to make transactions. The UK is also at the vanguard of this shift online, with the highest percentage of people who had ever bought drugs over theinternet. Almost a quarter of UK respondents to the survey – which is partnered by Mixmag and the Guardian in the UK and is likely to be answered by people who take drugs regularly – said they had bought drugs over the internet. Just under 60% knew about Silk Road, and of these, 44% had accessed the site. The most likely drug to be bought online was cannabis, followed by MDMA, LSD and ketamine. Of the 22% who had bought drugs online, 44% had first done so in 2012 or 2013, suggesting a new trend, according to Dr Adam Winstock, a consultant addictions psychiatrist in London and director of the survey.
"The fact that 44% of respondents who had bought drugs online said they'd done it for the first time recently says to me there is growing recruitment," he said. "It is currently a minority way to get drugs, but it really mimics the growth in e-commerce – we buy things online becuase it is convenient, cheap, and there is a better product range."
Until it was shut down last year, Silk Road was the largest online black market site in the world.
The site was accessed via the anonymous web browser Tor, which bounces internet users' and websites' traffic through "relays" run by volunteers around the world, making it extremely hard for anyone to identify the source of the information or the location of the user.
Payments were made in Bitcoin, the world's first cryptocurrency, a nearly anonymous way of sending money over the internet without involving credit card companies or banks.
In October 2013, the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht, a 29-year-old from San Francisco said to be Silk Road's founder, and the website was seized and shut down. The survey also reveals that the UK, more than any other country, is a nation of hedonists, said Winstock – 73.8% of respondents had taken at least one illegal drug over the last 12 months.Alcohol was the most common drug taken, followed by tobacco and cannabis. Just under 11% had bought "legal highs" sold as bath salts, research chemicals or legal highs.
"The UK just does not do things in moderation. We come out as some of the largest drug takers, taking a broader range of drugs that are reasonably cheap," he said. Winstock described the extent of alcohol abuse in the UK as "very worrying". "Many countries are clueless about alcohol, but the UK and Ireland are the most clueless, " he said. "People just have no idea when they are drinking at very dangerous levels." According to the survey, 60% of respondents demonstrated a medium, high or dependent level of alcohol problems. Just below 15% said they could not stop drinking once they had started at least monthly , while 17% reported feelings of guilt or regret after drinking at least monthly over the last year. Of the 7% who demonstrated dependency levels, only 39% recognised their drinking was dangerous, while 34.5% thought they drank an average or below-average amount.
. John, whose answers suggested "dependency" or a high level of alcohol problems, said he didn't feel his drinking had much of an impact on his life. "It's just part of the culture," the 40-year-old PR manager said. He described various drinking mishaps, including seeing his ex-boss try to have a fight with a double-decker bus. "You drink with clients and there are events with free alcohol almost every night. Drink, drink, drink - it's just normal."After looking at his consumption on the GDSdrinksmeter.com, he said the results were "terrifying", adding: "Maybe I need to calm down."
The survey – which was taken by 78,820 people, 7,326 of them from the UK – also revealed that almost a third of drug users aged between 18 and 24 admitted taking a "mystery white powder". Last year, a fifth of 18- to 25-year-olds admitted doing so.Of the 11% of the whole sample who took mystery drugs in the last 12 months, 80% were already intoxicated. And more people had taken MDMA than had consumed energy drinks, with 45.2% of respondents tkaing the drug compared to admitting taking it compared to 44.7% who said they had drunk caffeinated energy drinks in the last year.
Alcohol remained the most likely drug to damage respondents' health, but the survey also revealed that people using synthetic cannabis had a much higher likelihood of being admitted to hospital than users of natural cannabis.
Almost one in 100 MDMA users sought emergency medical treatment, with two-thirds of those being admitted to hospital. Winstock said this was "a cause for concern for a drug that so many users consider safe" and called for a more "realistic" drugs debate focused on harm reduction.
The Global Drug Survey has created a Highway Code, which gives advice on how to take each drug safely. "Simply saying drugs are bad does not engage people, you have to tell people who want to take drugs how to reduce their risks – and also have more fun," Winstock said. "You need a dialogue and that needs to include a conversation about pleasure."
Case study
Andrew (not his real name), a 21-year-old student from London studying sciences at Oxford, buys recreational drugs online:
I'll smoke some cannabis in the evening once or twice a week and I'll occasionally do small amounts of ketamine or occasionally MDMA when I go out. I used to do more when I was younger but I tend to have a better time doing less now.
I decided to try buying online because it seemed safer, more reliable and easier than buying on the street. With Silk Road, you are more likely to get the drugs you want, and they are less likely to be contaminated. Making sure you know what you're taking is very important.
It's remarkably easy to buy drugs on the web, almost identical to all other online shopping.
You send bitcoin to your Silk Road account, and search listings for whatever you want. Dealers will put up listings for "1g 100% reagent tested MDMA" or "4g Amnesia Haze", you click on what you'd like, check the reviews and then click buy. You give them your address (which I think due to recent rules has to be encrypted) and it's sent to you.
I've bought cannabis, ketamine, MDMA, LSD, magic mushrooms, valium and modafinil off Silk Road.
Drugs are bought using Bitcoin. Silk Road used to run an escrow system, where it acted as a middleman and held the money until the drugs arrived. The buyer then marked the drugs as 'delivered' and the money was released to the dealer. Silk Road was hacked around January and large amounts of money were stolen. Silk Road stopped their escrow system afterwards and were talking about asking users to use a third-party escrow. I haven't checked recently to see what system they're currently using.
I've only bought small (~1g) amounts of drugs. They usually come in vacuum sealed bags, in an envelope. I've only bought from dealers from the UK, and so envelopes are usually sent with first class stamps and take a couple of days to arrive.
Silk Road has a review system where users can rate the quality and amount of the drugs as well as how long they took to arrive and the quality of the "stealth" of the package. This incentivises dealers to be truthful about their product. Quality is generally high and if you buy a gram you'll receive a gram, which is rare on the street.
It was considerably easier than other drug transactions I have done, for all these reasons. I feel safer taking drugs bought on Silk Road. Delivery takes a couple of days so it's not a replacement for street dealers for spontaneous buying.
I've used the site semi-regularly for about two years. Silk Road 1 was shut down by the FBI in around October 2013 but was reopened about six weeks later and is referred to as Silk Road 2. Silk Road 2 was hacked around January and lots of user's money was stolen (I lost about £10). Silk Road has said that it has 'learnt it's lesson' and has made the necessary changes to rectify the problem but I haven't been back on the website.
I hope more people do buy their drugs online in the future. It's safer for users and there is more potential for transparency than buying on the street. I could see there'd be a market for 'ethical' drugs: homegrown cannabis or UK make MDMA which avoid the exploitative nature of the current drug trade. I have friends who've stopped taking drugs because of their murky background and I myself won't take cocaine because of the harm it can cause people along the supply chain.
British workers have enjoyed the first real pay rise since 2010, according to official figures, with salary rises overtaking inflation. Photograph: Alamy
British workers have enjoyed the first rise in their real pay for four years with wage rises finally overtaking inflation, official data is expected to confirm this week.
Economists believe inflation ticked down to 1.6% in March from 1.7% in February while annual wage growth is thought to have been 1.8% in the three months to February. Without bonuses, pay growth was 1.7%, according to the poll of economists by Reuters.
If confirmed, those rates will mark the first rise in real pay since April 2010, a month before the coalition came to power. Pay growth has not been consistently above inflation since 2008.
"This week's data releases should confirm that wages are now rising faster than prices of goods and services. Previously price increases were outpacing pay growth, meaning that households could afford to buy less and less with their pay cheques. The situation is now reversing and household purchasing power is on an improving trend," said Alan Clarke, economist at Scotiabank in London.
"Falling real wages has been a significant drag on the overall economic recovery in recent years, holding back consumers' purchasing power.
"That said, falling real incomes didn't get in the way of robust consumer spending growth over the last year. Household spending growth outpaced income growth as consumers saved less (or borrowed more) – encouraged by the buoyancy of the housing market. That boost from the housing market won't last for ever, so it is encouraging that rising real incomes should be an ongoing driving force behind consumers spending, even after the sugar rush from the housing market has become exhausted."
The thinktank Capital Economics expects both inflation data on Tuesday and labour market figures on Wednesday to bring good news for households and the wider economy.
"This week's official data may show that the squeeze on real pay is now over. The headline rate of annual pay growth looks set to have outstripped consumer price index inflation in February. What's more, March's consumer prices data are likely to show that inflation eased further in the following month. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate probably resumed its downward trend in February," say its economists in a research note.
The thinktank expects the unemployment rate to have dropped to 7% in the three months to February, while the consensus forecast in the Reuters poll is 7.1%.
Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight, is also forecasting 7% unemployment but predicts much of the focus for this latest batch of labour market figures will be on wage growth.
"Earnings growth finally rising above inflation would be a positive development for the economy's growth prospects. Earnings have been very low for a prolonged period and are markedly beneath long-term norms, so a gradual but sustained rise should not pose a significant inflation risk for some considerable time to come," he says.
"Earnings growth moving above consumer price inflation would also be a very welcome development for the government given Labour's focus on the cost of living."
With the general election just over a year away, Labour have sought to focus attention on how strongly inflation has outstripped pay growth, adding to the burden on households from the coalition's austerity drive. Inflation figures on Tuesday, however, are expected to show the pressure easing.
A supermarket food price war and lower petrol price inflation are expected to have brought the headline consumer price index (CPI) measure of inflation down for the sixth month running in March.
Philip Shaw, economist at Investec, expects CPI to come in at 1.5%, which would be the lowest rate since October 2009, and he forecasts it will stay relatively low.
"Inflation should remain below 2% over all, or at least almost all of the year. However we are keeping an eye on wholesale food prices – note that wheat prices (in sterling terms) are up 9.5% so far this year, while corn is 17% higher," he said.
The retail prices index measure, which includes housing costs and is used to set many pay deals, is forecast to have fallen to 2.5% in March from 2.7% in February, according to the Reuters poll.
Recently, we talked about how Japanese, while a tough language to learn, isn’t quite as difficult as some horror stories make it out to be.
Still, if English is your native language, certain Japanese grammar rules, like saying “wa” and “o” to mark the subject and object of your sentences, can seem like a major hassle.
With practice, though, these things start to become automatic.
Even better, the Japanese language is filled with incredibly handy phrases that we’d love to import into English.
1. Doumo – Hello, thanks, and hello and thanks
The extremely convenient domo manages to do the job of both “hello” and “thank you,”as it’s the first component of both doumo konnichiwa (good afternoon) and domo arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much).
Aside from being shorter than the two phrases it can replace (which are both a bit of a mouthful even by Japanese standards), doumo can also be used to combine the two sentiments. Did someone invite you to their house? A warm “Domo!” with a smile as they open the front door works as both a friendly greeting and a heartfelt thanks for opening their home to you.
2. Ozappa – Working in broad strokes
Ozappa is often used to describe a type of personality, and while it directly translates to “rough” or “broad,” it doesn’t mean the person in question is abrasive, nor does it indicate someone who’s broad-minded in the sense of being open to new ideas. Rather, someone who’s ozappa doesn’t really sweat the details, whether for better or worse. Your friend who planned the barbeque, said he’d buy the beer and stick it in the cooler, but didn’t think to buy ice? He’s ozappa, but so is your other pal who doesn’t get worked up when you hand him a lukewarm brew.
3. Bimyou – Subtly…not right
Although it literally means “subtle,” bimyou usually implies that something is a little off, and that maybe it’d be better to just do without it altogether. The dash of red wine that pork cutlet sauce really doesn’t need, the clunky metaphors in the love letter your wrote to your junior high crush, and the tasteful nose piercing you picked out for your job interview could all be described as bimyou.
4. Irusu – The “the lights are on but nobody’s home” fake-out
This is one many foreign residents in Japan do without even realizing there’s a term for it. Imagine it’s a nice Sunday afternoon. You’re lounging at home, enjoying your day off and browsing the Internet, when all of a sudden, there’s a knock at the door. Staring out the peephole, you spot someone dressed in clothing that could only be described as “missionary casual.”
Since you’ve already discovered your own personal guiding light, you slink quietly back from the door, fooling the solicitor into thinking you’re out so that he goes and bothers your neighbors instead. Congratulations, you just pulled off a successful irusu (pretending to be out when someone comes by) operation.
5. Chu to hampa – Not quite one thing, but not quite the other, either
Say you’re waiting to meet up with your friend, and he calls to say he’ll be five minutes late. No big deal, right? You can hold out that long.
Likewise, if he’s going to be two hours late, this doesn’t put you in such a big bind, since you can go do something else while you’re waiting. You could get something to eat, do some shopping, or grab a couple cups of coffee (or glasses of bourbon, neat, if it’s late enough in the day and/or you’re an alcoholic).
But what if your friend is going to be 20 minutes late? Now that’s a pain, since it’s way too long to sit around twiddling your thumbs, but not enough time to actually do anything with.
This kind of situation is what the Japanese call chu to hampa, halfway and some fragments. It’s used whenever you’ve got something that would be fine if it was just a few steps in either direction on whichever scale you’re measuring it with, but like some Opposite Day-version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it’s just wrong. The car that’s too big and bulky to be fun to drive but also doesn’t have enough trunk space to be practical? The girl you have too much chemistry with to be “just friends,” but don’t get along with well enough to want to see more than once a month? Chu to hampa, chu to hampa.
6. Majime – Earnestness for the 21st Century
Majime is usually listed in textbooks as “serious,” and you could translate it that way. However, saying a person is majime doesn’t mean they’re somber, since even people with professional-caliber senses of humor can be majime.
Majime is actually a little closer to “earnest,” but it doesn’t have the same nuance of ineffectualness associated with “earnest efforts,” nor the Victorian ring of calling someone “an earnest young man.” Majime indicates the personality possessed by people who are reliable, responsible, and can simply get things done without causing drama or problems for others. Not surprisingly, this is seen as an extremely desirable mindset in industrious Japan, and calling someone majime neither labels them as uptight or old-fashioned, but rather respectable and admirable.
7. Otsukaresama desu – You’re probably tired, and I think that’s great
Coming from tsukareru (to be tired), otsukaresama desu is one of the most useful phrases in Japanese business. Although it literally means, “You’re tired,” it’s not used to point out someone’s lack of pep, but to thank them for exhausting their energies to do something you, or the team you’re part of, benefitted from.
While the meaning is akin to “I appreciate your hard work,” otsukaresama desu has a couple distinct advantages over its English equivalent. For starters, it doesn’t sound nearly as stiff and impersonal. It can also be used when speaking up or down the chain of command. Managers can say it to their subordinates, and you can even say the phrase to your boss if he’s heading out of the office before you.
Otsukaresama desu is even a common greeting is business correspondence, especially among employees of the same company. Even if you don’t work side-by-side with him, it’s polite to give Tanaka in accounting the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s been busting his butt at work just like you have. So when you call him up to ask for the quarterly revenue figures, it’s common courtesy to start off your request with otsukaresama desu.
8. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu – I hope things go well, even if I’m not exactly sure what those things are
Fittingly, we finish with a phrase that’s often used to express an abstract yet genuine hope for good things to come, yoroshiku onegai shimasu. While onegai shimasu is pretty much just a polite way of saying “please,” yoroshiku means “well” or “favorably,” so the whole thing together is essentially a way of making the request, “Favorably, please.”
“Umm…favorably what?” is the reaction most English speakers initially have to this. Sure, Japanese can be a vague language at times, but this is a little much, isn’t it? If someone just says to you, “Favorably please,” what exactly are you supposed to do?
And therein lies the beauty of yoroshiku onegai shimasu: The exact thing you do doesn’t matter. As a matter of fact, the person who says yoroshiku onegai shimasu likely doesn’t have any concrete idea either. All they know is that somehow the two of you are connected, whether socially or professionally, and they hope that the relationship will be a mutually happy one.
There’s an unspoken understanding that while you’ll work out the details later, the ultimate goal is this.
Did your boss just hand you an important project? He’ll probably give you a yoroshiku onegai shimasu, or at least its informal variant, yoroshiku, before you get started on it, since you may run into some problems that take extra time and effort to resolve. Hopping in a friend’s car for a trip to the beach? Give him a yoroshiku, since he’ll be driving safely, even if he’d rather be sitting in the back joking and fooling around with everyone else. Meeting your significant other’s parents for the first time? You’d better believe that’s ayoroshiku onegai shimasu, since if things progress to marriage and babies, you’ve just linked two families who are going to be connected for generations to come.
And of course, this phrase gets used all the time with businesses and organizations who hope their patrons keep coming back for years to come. So thanks for reading, and to all of you, yoroshiku onegai shimasu!
